Laugh Till You Die: The Dangers Of Being "Good".
Being nice and liked by others - while being recognized as a social compliment and a generally positive trait - can actually harm our health,- says Gabor Mate.
Decades of research have come to the same conclusion: Suppressing our anger, putting our duties and the needs of others before our own, and trying to displease others is the main cause of chronic illness, says the New York Times writer Myth. General: Wound, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.
Our physiology is closely related to our social existence,- says the Vancouver doctor. Ignoring or suppressing how we feel and what we need - whether done subconsciously or unconsciously - triggers inflammation at the expense of our immune system, he says.
If we work our fingers to the bone, serving our customers all night, if we are always available, if we never rest, we will be financially rewarded and we will be rewarded with respect and admiration, and we kill ourselves for that,- he said.
When Mate reviewed more than 30 years of research on the treatment of chronic illness, he discovered a pattern of personality traits commonly found in people with chronic illness:
Automatic and compulsive concern for the emotional needs of others, regardless of one's own
Strong identification with social roles, duties, and responsibilities
Excessive responsibility is externally oriented based on the need to justify existence by doing and giving.
Healthy suppression, self-protective anger and
Hide and enforce Two Beliefs: Be responsible for others' feelings, and never let anyone down.
Whether these traits and their frightening prevalence in the personality of chronically ill patients are often overlooked or missed at all,- he said because they are among the most normalized ways in this culture ... surprising powers and potential liabilities.
These characteristics, he says, have nothing to do with free will or conscious choice.
Nobody can get up in the morning and say, Today, I'm going to put the needs of the world first, neglecting myself, or 'get rich with anger and sadness and wear happy clothes. Face it instead. However, we are not born with this Trait, instead, we use patterns, adapt, and protect our relationships with others, sometimes at the cost of our lives.
We develop this quality to be acceptable, Mateen's war between the competing needs for belonging and authenticity. As a tribal species, we need a supplement to survive, to conform to the needs and norms of others to ensure our membership in the group.
But it takes authenticity to be healthy. It is designed to feel and act on emotions, especially "negative" ones. Stay safe is our warning system. Psychiatrist Randolph Nesse, the founder of Arizona State University's Center for Evolution and Medicine, explains that we evolved to survive, not to be happy or peaceful.
Anxiety, sorrow, depression, anger, grief, and shame are valuable reactions to assist us with adapting to the difficulties of our specific climate. It is not a design flaw to have a powerful and intuitive defense function, such as a sense that warns you when there is danger. This is a design success.
Nesse says our emotions are like smoke alarms in response to perceived threats around us. This warning of danger is best evidenced by emotions such as fear of screaming. But more subtle emotional experiences help us navigate the threats and rewards of survival. The lowest mood shows that there is no higher reward than the risk of being around, like napping on Netflix, which is more beneficial or encourages us to save energy in a safe place. - until the reward returns.
Anger is also a necessary response to confronting inequality, and injustice, and thwarting our needs. It is the most effective tool for taking action against injustice. The greatest obstacle to social justice is not ardent opposition, but indifference. However, society has brought many of us together to reduce our anger. Even a more subtle form of anger, resentment, helps. When our bodies and brains pick up on subtle signs that our boundaries are not being respected, the anger alarm goes off loud and clear to set those boundaries before we even have time to discuss the situation.
However, the need to maintain membership in our group has robbed us of our ability to protect ourselves by suppressing these important emotional signals. And not only do we lose signals to protect us from immediate threats, but we also can't protect ourselves from the damage of chronic stress. If you go through life without realizing you have anxiety, there's little you can do to protect yourself from the long-term physiological consequences,- says Matt.
The more difficult problem, says Mate, is that easily suppressing emotions increase our stress response and leads to poor health outcomes. We know that chronic stress, regardless of its source, puts the nervous system on edge, disrupts the hormonal system, suppresses the immune system, increases inflammation, and damages physical and mental health, Mate said. Many studies show that the body exposed to chronic stress becomes inflamed, a precursor to many chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, autoimmune diseases, Alzheimer's, depression, and more, Matt.
However, from a young age, society dominates our emotions and needs through fulfillment, cuteness, and conformity. Mate learns that a child's very angry expression often threatens his relationship with his parents. In order to survive, children will learn to hold their anger to please their parents. So there is this tension in children between being a real person who has a relationship with their parents or being touched by their authenticity and feelings.
Mate be careful not to use this research to blame people for their own illnesses. No one is a self-inflicted disease, and no one causes it alone - knowingly, intentionally, or culpably. Diseases are the result of the interaction of generations, living conditions, cultural conditions, childhood trauma, and the physiological, physical, and psychological environment in which people experience stress and emotional history. These are often manifestations of deep-rooted personality traits, yes - but the personality is not similar to the diseases we can develop.
Our personalities and coping styles, he says, reflect the needs of larger, evolving social groups. The roles we are assigned or rejected, how we fit into or exclude society, and what the culture encourages us to believe, determine our health or illness. According to him, sickness and health are expressions of our social macrocosm.
According to Mate, social inequality has a huge impact on our health, with those who are politically weak or economically disenfranchised forced to form and suppress emotions and the most necessary for survival. This underpins the ongoing shift to combat inequality and focus on social justice, improving our health, a common theme in traditional myths.
At the same time, we can work on learning these behaviors by becoming more aware of our own feelings, body signals, and needs, instead of automatically ignoring them in the service of others.
Adaptive personality,- says Matt. What we call personality often includes true traits and conditioned coping mechanisms, including things that do not reflect our true identity and are still missing.
Mate describes true healing as opening up to the reality of our lives, past, and present. Once we pay enough attention, real choices begin to appear before we betray our true desires and needs. Now I can stop for a moment and say, 'Hmm, I'm going to fill this feeling or thought — is this what I want to do? Are there other options?
The emergence of new options to replace the old pre-planned dynamics is a sign that we are actually coming back online.
If you have any doubts,Please let me know